Supreme Court sends affirmative action case back to lower courts

This post was updated at 11:40 a.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court sent a case concerning the use of race in university admissions back to the lower courts Monday, saying the courts did not apply a proper level of “strict scrutiny” to the admissions policy in question.

In the case, Fisher v. University of Texas, former white student Abigail Fisher alleged that the university denied her admission to the school because of her race.

The lower courts had wrongly and automatically assumed the university’s assertion that its admissions policy considered the use of race in a “permissible” way, according to the Supreme Court opinion.

But the lower courts need to investigate whether the university’s policy was necessary for accomplishing racial diversity. They must also examine whether or not a policy that does not consider the use of race would have achieved the same goal, said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh. For example, UCLA officials have said UCLA does not consider race in university admissions and instead considers other factors, such as socioeconomic status.

Even if the Supreme Court had allowed the use of race in university admissions, however, the Fisher v. University of Texas case would not have affected California universities since California already has a state ban on affirmative action, Volokh said. Proposition 209, passed by California voters in 1996, prohibits the consideration of race, sex or ethnicity in university admissions.